Chapter 78: Inseparable

Nash

Getting back to my normal schedule, and my normal routine was proving practically impossible. No matter where I was, at the gym, at the office, on assignment, all I could think about was Daphne. All I could see was her face. At night I dreamed about her, sometimes, sweet, sexy dreams, and other times, horrible nightmares.

I’d done as much research as I possibly could into the Valiant Mountain pack, but they were a closed pack, and there was little information leaked about them. From what I had dug up, I knew they were strong, one of the strongest in the state, and that their security was world-renowned. “The Fort Knox of Wolf Packs” one journalist had written. Although they did have trade relations with neighboring packs, it was an established fact, that they could be, if necessary, completely self-reliant.

At least I had some assurance that Daphne was safe. Probably safer than she would have been if I had kidnapped her and taken her back to my place, which had been playing on my mind before her brothers showed up on the scene.

Then there was the matter of Kodi the werebear. My contacts at the university said that the bear had been sighted on campus grounds twice now - in bear form. Once at the Biology departments composting site, and another time at the edge of the soccer fields, not far from where the last student had been murdered. I was sent the photos from the cameras at the compost site, and while a little grainy, I was able to recognize the large black bear in the photo.

It had three scars running down it’s face, where the hair grew white. Just as Kodi had scars in her human form.

She was growing bolder, walking around in as a bear, being seen in day light hours. Had her encounter with me and Daphne caused her to crack a little bit more? Had we worsened the state of affairs by making contact? And while I kept saying “We”, I really knew it was my fault - I was the one who had practically walked straight into her on the trail that night.

I had collected my fee from Alpha Josiah, and I was officially off the case, except, I wasn’t. I couldn’t walk away leaving a psychopathic shfter on the lose. Josiah claimed he had hit a bunch of dead ends in his search for a solution. I understood that he was swamped with the concerns of his own community, and there were complicated political and cultural concerns that tied his hands, but still, I was a little disappointed that Josiah wasn’t going to step up and help me take care of this problem.

Were Daphne’s brother’s going to do something? Surely they had more of a vested interest in cleaning up the were-bear issue since their baby sister was a student. They wouldn’t risk her life. I’d already had a small taste, and those guys were hella over protective - as they should be.

The simplest solution would be to just go in and take her out - sniper style. She might have all the strength and speed and natural advantages of a supernatural creature, but she could take a bullet just like any other mammal. I didn’t know if a silver bullet would be more effective, as it was in a werewolf, but that could be arranged. I could take her down without anyone knowing who had pulled the trigger, but then, where would the blame fall? Just how upset would the werebear community be over the loss of a single female, when that female was a bonafide serial killer?

One question that stood out in my mind was the fact that she was clearly targeting the university. What was her connection to the school? There was that old hoodie that was stashed in Devil’s Den with the school mascot. Had she been a student?

Kodi had told me the name of her mate, Bruce. It was a shot in the dark, with no last names, but I decided to start searching all the school records for any students named Bruce or Kodi in the last fifteen years. I was probably going back too far, but I really had no idea how old Kodi was, or how old her mate was. She didn’t look like she was over thirty, but it was always hard to tell with shifters. They didn’t age like we did.

I didn’t get any hits on a “Kodi”. She might not have been a student, or that might not even be her real name. However, “Bruce” brought up a total of fifty-seven students over the last fifteen years. Who knew it was such a popular name?

I sat in my office, in the small building Turner Security occupied, and scrolled through page after page of random Bruce mentions, without really knowing what I was looking for. Two of the Bruces were actually on staff. One had retired seven years ago, and was now deceased. But the dude was 87 and “Passed peacefully in his sleep” at the Shady Acres Retirement Village. I crossed his name off the list of possible mates.

It was a tedius game of “where are they now”. Bruce Billings, married with three kids, working as an auto detailer in Des Moines. Bruce Butler, divorced, manages a hotel in Buffalo. Bruce Canche, never married, teaches seventh grade science in Boston. Bruce Fuller, currently admitted to an alcoholi rehab facility in Miami.

I crossed another name off the list and swore under my breath. This was a hell of a lot of work, for maybe-nothing.

Finally I found a grainy photograph of one Bruce Ledbetter. He was wearing the univeristy football uniform, with a pigskin tucked under one arm. He smiled into the camera with all the cocksure confidence of a kid with mediocre talent who had great expectations of being scouted by the NFL. That alone, was not interesting. However, he had his arm around a woman, presumably his girlfriend. Her face wasn’t entirely clear in the photo, but the color of her hair stood out, that blue-black color that made one thing it must be a wig, or a fantastic dye job. The caption under the photo read, “Quarterback and Team Captain Bruce Ledbetter leads team to third straight victory.”

But after his graduation with a degree is Sports Medicine, Bruce Ledbetter virtually disappeared. I found a vehicle registration at the Vermont DMV that was four years old. But I couldn’t dig up any employment history, no credit history, nothing.

And no death certificate, at least, not that I could find.

So what happened to Bruce Ledbetter?

Kodi’s words, although they were tinged with madness, echoed in my head. “They took him. They used my own knives!”